Grease Trap Maintenance 101

Grease traps can be a restaurant’s or commercial kitchen’s worst nightmare if not well maintained. Grease trap maintenance performed on a routine schedule is key for businesses to keep their drains running smoothly, avoid costly repairs, and keep kitchens sanitary for its customers.

Grease traps are created to stop fats, oils or grease (FOG) from entering the sewer lines. Restaurants produce such high quantities of grease during its daily activities, causing grease traps to become clogged or backed up if not routinely cleaned and inspected. Learn why grease trap maintenance is essential to the future success of your restaurant or commercial kitchen:

Government Regulations - Government agencies regulate restaurant grease traps, making sure they are functioning properly, routinely cleaned, and inspected and maintained by a professional service. Government agencies can issue commercial kitchens fines, sanctions, and can terminate a restaurant’s license/permit to conduct business if they do not follow the proper grease trap maintenance protocol. Therefore, properly maintaining your kitchen’s grease trap is essential to the future success of your restaurant.

Risks of Poor Maintenance - If grease traps are subjected to large amounts of grease buildup, fats, oils, and grease can become rancid. Restaurants want to make sure they are checking their indoor or outdoor grease traps on a weekly or even daily basis to make sure FOG is not hardening, clogging, or rotting inside grease traps. If left unmaintained for lengthy periods of time, the buildup of FOG can cause the spread of toxic fumes and harmful bacteria throughout a kitchen. This can lead to foul odors and the spread of bacteria harming employees and customers, as well as restricting water from entering the sewage system, causing sanitary sewer overflo.

Do’s and Dont’s - Grease trap maintenance should always be done by a professional service who specializes in grease removal to avoid these common mistakes. First, it’s essential that restaurants have the proper sized grease trap to account for their daily accumulation of FOG. If a grease trap is too small, it will frequently clog, resulting in high maintenance bills. Make sure that boiling water is not entering a grease trap. This will cause the FOG to become liquid and allow it to enter sewer pipes. Grease traps should be connected to food prep and dishwashing stations, but should not be connected to garbage disposals or dishwashers. Restaurant owners and staff can avoid trap buildups by thoroughly removing food particles off plates before they wash dishes, maintain a grease trap-cleaning log, and schedule regular grease trap maintenance.

Grease trap maintenance should be one of the highest priorities in every commercial kitchen. If not routinely cleaned, FOG will become extremely difficult to remove from grease traps, leading to sanitary code violations, FOG entering the sewage system, and the breakdown of grease traps. To avoid kitchen interference, restaurants must monitor their grease traps on a daily basis.

As a restaurant owner, we know you have endless responsibilities to take care. Let us here at Ace Grease Service worry about your grease trap. We can help clean, inspect, and maintain grease traps of all different sizes and styles. We will develop a routine maintenance schedule that meets the needs of your business. Don’t wait any longer before hiring our team of professionals to ensure that your grease trap is clean and compliant with local, state, and federal regulations.

Have grease traps in need of maintenance? Come to Ace Grease Services! You can rest assured that 100 percent of the oil that is removed from your business will be recycled and that you are making a difference in keeping the environment green and clean for the future generations! Call us today at 800-473-2733 or visit us online at www.acegrease.com to learn more about us!